Referring expression choice in grounded contexts: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational aspects

Call for papers            Schedule              

When: August 3-7, 2026

Where: ESSLLI 2026, Czech Technical University, Prague. Please see the ESSLLI 2026 web site for registration and other practical information.

Invited speakers:

Raffaella Bernardi, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Laia Mayol, UPF

Denis Paperno, Utrecht U.

Description:

When we refer to entities and events in our environment, particularly (but not only) when visual information is present, we have choices. Depending on what has been said before, who or what else is in a scene, and the characteristics of what we want to refer to, we might say (among other options) the person running, the runner, the woman in the red shirt, the one with the glasses, or them over there. While some factors influencing RE choice have been amply studied, others have received less attention (e.g. choices involving taxonomic granularity, cross-classifiability of referents, the scenes referents appear in). This workshop aims to gain further insight into the range of this variation; to highlight its theoretical and practical relevance; and to promote synergies between researchers at the interfaces of linguistics, cognitive science, and computation who have studied different aspects of referring expression choice in grounded contexts.

Contact e-mail address: [email protected]

Organizers: Louise McNally (UPF) & Gemma Boleda (ICREA/UPF)